


my eyes won't let you go

by makeshiftvoiid



Category: Clone High
Genre: Falling In Love, First Dates, Friends to Lovers, Love Letters, Love Poems, M/M, References to Depression, Sharing Clothes, jfk calling vincent different names for short gives me life, the chapter count may or may not change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:55:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26874040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makeshiftvoiid/pseuds/makeshiftvoiid
Summary: JFK held his arm up, keeping the paper out of Vincent’s reach. “Calm down, short stack,” he said, “I’ll, er, help you pick up your stuff in a second.”The shorter boy raised his voice a little. “That’s not the problem! The problem is I seriously need you to stop reading!”JFK ignored his pleas, and as his eyes moved down the letter, a wide grin formed on his face. “Ohoho, I didn’t know you were a writer, short stack!” he laughed. “And you, uh, have a crush on Julius, too?”
Relationships: JFK & Vincent Van Gogh (Clone High), JFK/Ponce "Poncey" de León (Clone High) (mentioned), Vincent Van Gogh/Julius Caesar (Clone High)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 88





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> imagine liking ships that actually have a decent amount of content lmao.........could NOT be me
> 
> at first this was gonna be a rlly long one shot, but then i was like "ok it's gonna take me like 3 years to finish if i don't split it into multiple chapters," so here we are. the rest of the chapters might be pretty short, i'm honestly not sure how i got this first one past 2k words bc of how short most of the things i write are lmao?? 
> 
> the title's from the english translation of love song by lamazeP btw

Vincent didn’t expect himself to enjoy writing as much as he did. Obviously, he took more interest in drawing and painting, but writing was nice sometimes. Some of his feelings were just too personal to paint. He knew that most people didn’t understand his art anyway, but he still didn’t want to risk anyone knowing about... this kind of stuff. Romantic stuff. He wasn’t sure if he was any good at it, given that he’d rather freeze to death (that had always been a fear of his, he didn’t know why) than show anyone what he wrote, but he still liked doing it.

He wrote his first letter around the beginning of junior year. After the hotline incident, Julius approached him during lunch to ask if he was okay. He had to admit, the revenge mural didn’t help as much as he thought it would. It was nice to get his anger out but he still had the leftover feeling of shame for just wanting someone to talk to. Of course, he didn’t talk about that with Julius. But it was nice to know someone cared. He really didn’t have to go out of his way to ask if Vincent wanted to talk. After that, they’d have conversations on the way to school every morning. It was usually the only thing Vincent had to look forward to. At some point, they started visiting each other’s houses every other weekend and helping each other with homework, and Vincent’s heart started racing just thinking about talking to the other boy.

He wasn’t especially… motivated to do anything at the time; not even painting. So, he couldn’t really do anything with these feelings, but he absolutely hated keeping things bottled up. Even if he rarely talked about how he felt, he typically expressed it in his paintings. He remembered reading somewhere that writing was a good way to get emotions out and he thought that might be a good idea.

As soon as he got home that day, Vincent took a piece of notebook paper and his favorite pencil and just started writing. He didn’t put much thought into it at first, simply writing whatever he felt and letting his heart take the lead. He was surprisingly pleased with the result. _Why not keep doing this?_ he thought. So he did.

Vincent stuck to writing short letters for a while, keeping them in a folder he carried with him at all times to make sure no one tried to peek inside. If anyone asked, he could just say it was art that he didn’t want to share with anyone. Technically, that wasn’t a lie.

On one especially cold day later in the year, Vincent didn’t wear enough layers and was freezing his ass off on the walk to school.

“Hey, are you cold?” Julius asked upon finally catching up with him. Before Vincent could respond, he decided, “Actually, yeah, you’re definitely cold,” and promptly pulled off his jacket before holding it out to the redhead. “Here! You can keep it if you want.”

“A-Are you sure?” Vincent stammered (whether that was because of the temperature or because he was nervous, he wasn’t sure), his grip on his arms tightening.

“Mhm! I don’t mind, really.”

Vincent stared at the item of clothing before taking it and hesitantly slipping it on. He sighed, appreciating the sudden warmth. “Um… thank you,” he said meekly. Julius just smiled in response.

Not a single letter he wrote that evening worked like they were supposed to. Vincent always felt relief putting his thoughts onto paper, but that just wasn’t happening that night. No matter how much he wrote, he still couldn’t relax. Maybe it was time to do something different? He had been reading poetry for an English assignment; there wouldn’t be any harm in trying to write some.

He spent the rest of that night smiling and giggling into Julius’s jacket.

Since then, he’s written poems with most of his letters. Sometimes he’d just write poems on their own. He loved using them to describe things like how he could barely look at Julius without feeling butterflies in his stomach, but at the same time, it was so, so difficult to take his eyes off of him. He’d draw him in the margins of his notebook paper when he was thinking of what to write and every page of his sketchbook had drawings of him, whether it was a small doodle in the corner or a full-on masterpiece. He loved his laugh, his dark eyes, how soft his hair looked, the nicknames he gave him, how he was so caring about everyone… He utterly adored Julius.

As time passed and Vincent spent more time with him, his feelings got stronger, and he wrote more and more every day. His folder was packed with sappy love letters and poems detailing every romantic thing he wanted to do with Julius. Now, he was sitting in the back of Mr. Sheepman’s classroom, daydreaming about his crush instead of paying attention to whatever the lesson was about. The bell soon shook him out of his thoughts and he watched as everyone else left, waiting until he was almost completely alone to stand up and start packing his things. The clone grabbed his folder, which was hiding under a book on his desk, and tried to take a step to his left only to trip on his untied shoelaces and drop what he was holding.

Vincent laid there for a moment, stunned, before slowly pushing himself up and groaning in pain. He touched his nose to make sure it wasn’t broken and raised his head a bit. A pair of loafers and a familiar color of khakis were standing in front of him. He lifted his head further to see if it was actually who he thought it was. Sure enough, JFK was right there, reading something on a sheet of paper that had a cute little doodle on the back. _That’s funny_ , Vincent thought, _I drew something like that last night_.

...Wait a minute.

His heart dropping, Vincent looked down at the tiled floor and realized that all the papers scattered about were from his folder. “Wait, don’t read that!” He yelled as he rushed to stand up again, tackling JFK in an attempt to grab the letter before he read too much. Unfortunately, he was but a mere three apples tall compared to the jock, so that didn’t work out.

JFK held his arm up, keeping the paper out of Vincent’s reach. “Calm down, short stack,” he said, “I’ll, er, help you pick up your stuff in a second.”

The shorter boy raised his voice a little. “That’s not the problem! The problem is I seriously need you to stop reading!”

JFK ignored his pleas, and as his eyes moved down the letter, a wide grin formed on his face. “Ohoho, I didn’t know you were a writer, short stack!” he laughed. “And you, uh, have a crush on Julius, too?”

Vincent sighed and hid his face in his hands. His chest felt like it was on fire. Why did it have to be JFK? Why couldn’t it have been Joan? Or Ponce? Hell, he’d even prefer Abe. Nearly anyone but JFK. He noticed his eyes start to feel wet and in a defeated, trembling voice, he croaked, “P-Please don’t tell anyone.”

JFK made a confused noise. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, finally lowering his arm and allowing Vincent to snatch the letter. “Your writing’s really good. I, er, uh, liked the little poem you put there.”

“Uh-huh,” Vincent replied, not believing a word. He knelt down to retrieve the rest of the papers just before JFK did the same.

“No, really,” JFK insisted. “I can, uh, really see how you feel about Julius.” Too ashamed to respond, Vincent silently continued picking up his poems and letters. “Hey, since I know something embarrassing about you now, I could tell you something embarrassing about me… if you, er, want me to.”

“That’s okay,” Vincent exhaled, “you don’t have to.”

JFK shook his head. “I’m fine with it. You’re smart so I doubt you’d go telling people.” He breathed in before speaking again. “I, uh, like Ponce.”

“Oh,” Vincent mumbled. “Huh. ...I guess I kind of expected that.”

That seemed to catch the jock off guard. He froze as he handed the stack of papers to Vincent. “Wait, you did?”

“Mhm.” Vincent took the stack and placed it under the one he had gathered. “You guys have been closer than usual lately, I think. And you get this look whenever you’re around him.”

A blush spread across JFK’s face and he furrowed his brows. “I do?!” he exclaimed, bringing a hand up to rub the back of his neck. “Do you think he knows? Am I, uh, that obvious?”

Vincent inserted the letters and poems back into the folder and paused before answering, “You’re probably fine. And even if he did know, he’d probably tell you if it made him uncomfortable.” He wasn’t sure why he was trying to console him. If he had to guess, it was likely because he didn’t want to piss him off and make him tell everyone about his stupid letters. Or maybe it was because he sympathized with JFK. He preferred to think it was the former.

Whatever the reason, JFK definitely seemed calmed by the response. He took a moment to regain his composure, then stood up, grabbing Vincent’s wrist pulling him up as well. “Thanks, little man,” he said, warmly smiling at the artist. “Y’know, I think Julius might feel the same about you.”

Vincent frowned and held his folder close to his chest. That was always comforting to him. “I doubt it. Why would someone as perfect as him be interested in someone like me?”

“Hey, don’t put yourself down.” JFK ruffled the redhead’s hair, much to his annoyance. “He, uh, talks about you all the time.”

Vincent’s eyebrows rose slightly and he glanced at the jock with a hopeful look in his eyes. “He does?”

“Yep. All the time,” he repeated himself. “You’re like, his go-to topic. He’s always tellin’ us about funny stuff you do when you two hang out. So, uh, when are you gonna show him those letters?”

“Why would I do that?” Vincent asked as if that were the dumbest question he’d ever heard.

“Well, they’re letters. Other people are supposed to read those.”

“Not these ones. I just write them to get my feelings out. I didn’t really want anyone to see them.”

“Why not?”

Vincent scoffed. “Who would I share them with?”

“...Good point.” JFK’s face lit up for a moment. “Hey, what if I tried to convince him to make a move on you?”

“What?” Vincent stared at the jock with wide eyes, his cheeks reddening. “No, you don’t have to waste your time on that. I can work this out on my own-”

“If I don’t you’ll probably keep waiting and waiting to ask him out,” JFK cut him off. “It’d be faster if I helped.”

Vincent had a feeling that it would be useless to try and stop him. “Fine,” he muttered.

Satisfied, JFK nodded his head and gave Vincent a firm pat on the back, nearly knocking him over again. “Thanks again, little dude.”

“You know you can just call me my name, right?”

“Hmm… No, I don’t think I will.”

* * *

One of Vincent’s classes was on the other side of the school, far away from the rest of his classes. This wasn’t much of a problem for him, as he usually walked pretty quickly, but he was fairly certain that he wouldn’t be able to get there on time because of how long he spent talking with JFK. He scurried through the halls and darted up various staircases until he felt something tugging his sleeve when he was just about to arrive at his destination. Mildly annoyed, he turned around with a frown to see who was stopping him. His expression immediately softened upon seeing who it was.

“Hey, Vinnie!” greeted an out of breath Julius. “Jeez, you walk fast...”

Vincent flushed somewhat at the use of his nickname. “Hey. Sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Julius held up a pencil covered in blue and yellow paint. “You, uh, dropped your pencil when you left Mr. Sheepman’s class.”

Vincent looked down at the pencil, then back at the boy holding it. “You chased me across the school just to give me my pencil?”

“Yes.”

“You… You could’ve just given it to me at lunch or something.” Vincent pulled at the cuff of his sleeves, feeling guilty about likely making Julius late for his next class. It’s then that he notices JFK standing at the end of the hallway, grinning smugly at the pair. ...Did he plan something? In the very, very short amount of time that they’ve been apart after leaving the classroom?

“Uh… Yeah, I guess I could’ve,” Julius said quietly and bashfully glanced at the floor. “I’m sorry, I-”

“No, it’s fine, dude,” Vincent interrupted. “Thank you, I appreciate it.”

Julius beamed. “No problem! By the way,” he began to add, “I wanted to ask if-” The bell rang, but Vincent kept watching Julius, patiently waiting for him to finish his sentence. Instead of doing that, panic flashed across the emperor clone’s face. “Oh, you’re gonna be late!” He quickly turned the other way and gave Vincent a wave. “Sorry again! I’ll see you later, Vince!” With that, he dashed off.

Vincent only stood there, confused, before he headed to his class as well.

* * *

The next time Vincent saw Julius, he was painting alone in the art room, completely forgetting about eating as he often did. Whenever he got really into a painting, he’d completely tune out everything else and focus only on the canvas in front of him. That’s probably why he didn’t hear the hushed reassurances from JFK as he shoved Julius into the room and closed the door, and why he didn’t see Julius just standing there for five minutes straight before he finally approached the redhead, And why he didn’t hear him saying “Vincent?” until he tapped his shoulder.

His focused expression completely dissipated. “Oh. Hi, Julius.”

Julius’s eyes landed on the painting as he smiled. “Painting a mushroom?”

Vincent nodded. “I saw one when I left my house this morning,” he said. “I thought it looked nice.”

“It does,” Julius agreed with a smile. “Sorry again. About earlier.”

“I told you it’s fine,” Vincent chuckled, lowering his paintbrush. “What were you gonna ask me?”

“Uh,” the taller boy started, “I just wanted to know if… You don’t have to, I get it if you’re busy, but I wanted to ask if you’d like to go to the Grassy Knoll with me today?” He shoved his hands into his pockets and averted his eyes. “Again, it’s completely fine if you can’t.”

Vincent had never seen Julius so anxious. He was just asking to hang out, what was so different about that time than every other time he’s done it? “I don’t have any plans today, so sure.”

Julius’s face seemed to relax a bit at the answer. “Alright. Cool.” His hand was already hovering over the nearest chair as he asked, “Do you mind if I watch you paint?”

“Go ahead. I’ve been wanting to talk to someone, anyway.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once Julius told the waitress their order, he began tapping his fingers on the table while keeping his gaze fixed on the ground. He looked so tense. “Hey, are you good?” Vincent asked. “You seem pretty on edge today.”
> 
> “Huh? Oh-” Julius’s eyes finally met Vincent’s and a light shade of pink dusted his cheeks. “Sorry. I’m alright.”
> 
> The artist smiled softly to try and console him. Julius returned the gesture, the color on his face deepening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm kind of surprised by the feedback this got?? thank you guys sm askdajfhjks

The walk to the diner was strangely quiet. Julius waited outside of Vincent’s last class of the day and barely said a word as they left the school. At one point, Vincent turned to look at him and his hand shot back to his side, his eyes wide. Weird. He seemed to relax when they got to their destination.

“Could I stay at your house for a bit after this?” Julius asked, just after taking a deep breath, as he took Vincent’s hand to lead him to a booth. “I need some help with math again.”

Vincent didn’t respond for a second, trying to calm down from such a simple touch. “...Yeah, definitely.” The two sat across from each other in a somewhat awkward silence for a few moments. Once Julius told the waitress their order, he began tapping his fingers on the table while keeping his gaze fixed on the ground. He looked so tense. “Hey, are you good?” Vincent asked. “You seem pretty on edge today.”

“Huh? Ah-” Julius’s eyes finally met Vincent’s and a light shade of pink dusted his cheeks. “Sorry. I’m alright.”

The artist smiled softly to try and console him. Julius returned the gesture, the color on his face deepening.

It wasn’t long before their order arrived. Julius slid one of the containers of fries to the other boy, who was already drinking his milkshake. “I know you don’t like eating in public,” he quickly said, “but I thought you could take them home and eat later. I think one time you told me that you really like the fries here.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Now it was Vincent’s turn to blush; he didn’t at all expect Julius to remember something as trivial as that. “You started reading a new book recently, right?”

“Yes! I’m only a couple of chapters into it but it’s great so far. It starts with…”

He began giving a basic summary of everything he’s read so far, soon moving on to how much he enjoyed the author’s style of writing. Vincent nodded every few seconds to let him know that he was still listening. Listening to Julius talk about books he likes (or anything he likes, really) was something Vincent felt he could do forever. His eyes slowly drifted down the emperor clone’s face to his lips, watching as he occasionally paused to take a sip of his milkshake. Vincent briefly wondered if he had already written about how soft his lips looked, but he supposed that if he had, it’s not like he couldn’t write about it again. He’s written about Julius hundreds of times yet he always found a way to make each letter or poem unique. There were just so many things he loved about him. He never had to spend time thinking about what specific part of him he wanted to write about. Julius was just so… well, he had already said what he thought of him when he talked to JFK: he was perfect.

Hearing his name brought him back to reality. “Vince?”

Vincent’s eyes snapped back to Julius’s grey ones. He knew his face was heating up even more but he tried to ignore it as best as he could. “Hm?”

“You okay? I think you spaced out for a second.”

“I…” His mouth fell open as he racked his brain for an excuse, but he was unable to find one. “S-Sorry. You can keep talking, I’m listening now.”

“Oh, I’ve said all I wanted to say about it.” The shame on Vincent’s face must’ve been obvious because Julius quickly added, “That’s okay, though! I’m just glad that you don’t mind me rambling about stuff. Most of my other friends get tired of it.”

Who the hell would ever get tired of listening to him? “Yeah, it’s no problem.” Then, without thinking, he said, “I think it’s kind of cute when people talk about things they’re interested in.”

Julius thankfully didn’t mind indirectly being called cute. He just grinned at him before popping a fry into his mouth. “Hey, have you ever gone rollerskating?”

“Uh… A few times, yeah.” That was such an understatement. Vincent skated pretty frequently when he was in middle school. “Why?”

“I found a skating rink that’s not far from here. I wanted to check it out this weekend and I thought we could go there together.”

“Oh, okay. I’m free this weekend, so…”

“Okay! Can I pick you up at twelve?”

Vincent nodded, smiling again, and took another sip of his milkshake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((hjngdj vince not eating in public is purely me projecting btw........))

**Author's Note:**

> thought i should say my friend suggested the "a mere three apples tall" thing. thanks ollie ily :)


End file.
